The last time I checked my stack of screeners, I did not see a single television special being produced to observe the sixth anniversary of the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

That has not stopped another group of highly creative people from generating their own commemoration of the events of 9/11. I refer, of course, to conspiracy theorists.

This morning I found an email in my inbox from one Guy Smoot, who identified himself as a graduate student in classics at Rutgers University, arguing that 9/11 "was an inside job." I think it was the classics part that got me — that was my major in college, too, and I've always thought it helped develop my critical-thinking skills, which seem to be missing, or underutilized, among the 9/11 conspiracy crowd.

After establishing through a web search that Mr. Smoot probably was who he claimed to be, I read his letter more carefully and wrote a response.

As I watched the so-called "experts" in the History Channel hit piece "9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction," it began to dawn on me as to what it takes to make some of the "experts" truly an expert in the field of 9/11 studies.

I decided to look into one of the "experts," Davin Coburn of Popular Mechanics, and I found out that his expertise on 9/11 came from writing high school sports stories at a newspaper in Pennsylvania a little more than three years ago.

This is a timely, excellent response to the 'debunkers' of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

The 'debunkers,' of course, are the ones who are on the 9/11 research scene to say: "Everything the 9/11 Truth Movement says about government complicity is wrong. The official story is indeed correct, so please get back to whatever you were doing in your life before you ever heard of these absurd theories."

This is Griffin's thickest technical volume on 9/11. There are four lengthy chapters, totaling 322 pages of text, after which there are 62 pages of endnotes. The fourth chapter, about 100 pages in length, deals exclusively with rebutting the Popular Mechanics book "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts." The first three chapters deal with other publications that emerged in 2006, as the 9/11 Truth Movement was gaining ground. These publications include Michael Broenner's Vanity Fair article "9/11 Live: The Norad Tapes," Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton's "Without Precedent," and finally the NIST report and its attempt to debunk the controlled demolition hypothesis.

I've been toying for awhile about what kind of review to write. If I give an in-depth review of the content for each chapter of this book, the review will be so long people won't want to read it! Several other in-depth reviews have focused on the problems with the NORAD tapes. So I will focus primarily on the Popular Mechanics chapter, since PM is most often cited as the knockout punch which refutes all the movement's claims.

Skeptic Magazine has come out with a half-assed response to the 9/11 Truth Movement. They cite Popular Mechanics' theories about the attacks, and not much else in their 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, the 9/11 Truth Movement in Perspective.

Someone should have told them that Professor David Ray Griffin has demolished the Popular Mechanics diatribe in his Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory.

Let's forego all of that -- pretend it never happened -- and get to the accusations of the article.

Skeptic Magazine has come out with a half-assed response to the 9/11 Truth Movement. They cite Popular Mechanics' theories about the attacks, and not much else in their 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, the 9/11 Truth Movement in Perspective.

Someone should have told them that Professor David Ray Griffin has demolished the Popular Mechanics diatribe in his Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory.

Let's forego all of that -- pretend it never happened -- and get to the accusations of the article.

But first, I just have to bring up a little definitional dispute. To the editors of "Skeptic" magazine: I am the skeptic here, not your writer Phil Molé. I am highly skeptical of the government's account of the events of September 11th 2001, and with good reasons.

Interview with author and theologian, Dr. David Ray Griffin, on his new book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. Dr. Griffin takes on four major semi-official publications: The Popular Mechanics book, Debunking 9/11 Myths; the Kean/Hamilton book, Without Precedent; Vanity Fair's, "9/11 Live the NORAD Tapes"; and NIST's "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions", as well as recent articles in The Progressive, Counterpunch, The Nation, etc. Rational conspiracy theories versus irrational conspiracy theories; good science versus bad science; the stand down; psychological resistance to the evidence. KPFA fundraiser with Bonnie Faulkner and Tod Fletcher.

Richard Johnson and I most certainly do not see eye to eye when it comes to such topics as the collapse of WTC 7 and the importance of a debate between 9/11 Truthers and Popular Mechanics. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed my only two conversations with him and have found him -- at least over the phone -- to be a rather genial and polite man.

However, on his Page Six column of The New York Post, he taken an aggressive stance towards the 9/11 Truth Movement for reasons that so far appear to be invalid and based on rumor and conjecture.

James Meigs, editor in chief of "Popular Mechanics," ... said as much as 25% of the building was scooped out by the falling debris. He added, "There were intense fires that burned inside the building that weakend the steel frame. Rosie O'Donnell said this was the first time in history fire melted steel, but fire doesn't have to melt steel to weaken it enough to fail."

As a preface, I must say I am absolutely itching to receive my copy of David Ray Griffin's new book in the mail. Popular Mechanics' role as an arm of propaganda is rearing its ugly head again. Now that Rosie has come forward, along comes Popular Mechanics to "rebut" her. Most of the media is buying in to the PM rebuttal. For example, in response to Rosie's "Bring on a structural engineer!", one news article says: "But what Rosie and the conspiracy theorists overlook is that Popular Mechanics Magazine contacted many experts and have done a thorough investigation that answers the theorists' questions."

On the Randi Rhodes (Air America) 9/11 forum, a poster by the name of "Ohio Girl" made the following comment:

"Oh gosh. This again!!! I think in the end, people will believe what they CHOOSE to believe. I read a very interesting article in popular mechanics that debunked several of the theories. I would expect Popular Mechanics to be pretty unbiased."

James Meigs, editor in chief of Popular Mechanics said as much as 25% of the building was scooped out by the falling debris. He added, "There were intense fires that burned inside the building that weakend the steel frame."

OK, let's look at what Meigs is saying:

1) As much as 25% of the building was scooped out by falling debris.
--There is no photo anywhere in the public realm showing 25% damage to this building.
--Even if Meigs' statement were completely true, such damage would cause the building to topple over to the side, not collapse at free-fall speed straight down.

Recently, Rosie O’Donnell, a co-host of ABC talk show The View, made comments on the show that renewed controversy over the collapse of World Trade Center 7.

While saying she didn’t know what to believe about the U.S. government’s involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11, she said, “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”

She continued: “To say that we don’t know that it imploded, that it was an implosion and a demolition, is beyond ignorant. Look at the films, get a physics expert here [on the show] from Yale, from Harvard, pick the school—[the collapse] defies reason.” (Watch the clip here)

Was the World Trade Center brought down deliberately on Sept. 11, 2001, for the purpose of – are you ready for this? – eliminating records of government investigations into corporate fraud? That's the implication of a blog posting by Rosie O'Donnell about the worst terror attack in American history.

In her March 15 posting, titled "wtc7," on her Rosie.com blog, the controversial TV personality and co-host of ABC's popular "The View" morning show, starts off by recounting popular conspiracy "factoids" regarding the World Trade Center's Building No. 7, which collapsed after the two larger "twin towers" fell.

O'Donnell writes:

* The fires in WTC 7 were not evenly distributed, so a perfect collapse was impossible.

* Silverstein said to the fire department commander "the smartest thing to do is pull it."